How Relevant Are Your Marketing Channels?

I’ve always enjoyed reading Tom Fishburn’s blog. He coined the term marketoonist for what he is – a marketer and cartoonist. Through illustrations, he tells visual stories based on his experiences in the marketing and innovation world. I thought his recent blog post on push notifications resonated well with what is happening in Singapore.

The gist of the post speaks of how push notifications is going to be the next big thing – cost effective, targeted and measurable. But this may not be at all good news for consumers, especially when there are inclinations of misuse. Irrelevant messages can drive them crazy. Could this be the very reason why the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) was introduced in Singapore?

Businesses, especially SMEs, always seek for the most effective and value for money marketing tools. And this may have resulted in mass blasting of promotional messages to people who might not even bother. I bet all of us have received such notifications through our mobile phones, emails and letterboxes and simply throw them away.

It’s a pity. I strongly believe that understanding your target audience is the first step to developing a brand or marketing strategy, or at the very least, choosing the right marketing tools and using the right messages. Right from where Marketing 101 teaches about Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning, companies need to understand whom their potential customers are before knowing how to reach out to them.

Push messaging may or may not work for every company in Singapore, but there are many other effective channels to deploy after understanding your target audiences’ behaviour and preferences.